


and i wish plant life would grow all around me (so i won't feel dead anymore)

by AlienAnimator



Category: Little Shop (1991), Little Shop of Horrors - All Media Types
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Period-Typical Homophobia, Weird Biology, a lot of swearing, artistic liberties with plant biology, junior is weird but we love him, lol seymour and audrey are BOTH gay, seriously im not joking theres a lot, seymour's family life: none father with left junior, this is middle school in 1991, yeah this is legitimate fanfic for the 1991 cartoon. sue me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-03-09 09:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18914323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlienAnimator/pseuds/AlienAnimator
Summary: Seymour's a nerd with (almost) no friends. What's a kid to do? Talk to his plant.





	1. Chapter 1

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Seymour sat up in bed, shutting off his alarm. His thoughts still a jumble, he lingered for a while, silently willing himself to get out and onto the ladder down from his top bunk. There wasn't anything special, really, to look forward to in his day to motivate him to start it. It would be just the same as every other in his admittedly rather monotonous life. Having stumbled over his own feet on his way down, the boy took a moment to collect himself before shuffling over to get dressed, pull his hat on backwards, and grab one of his mom's crappy yogurts from the fridge for breakfast.

"Bye, mom, I'm gonna go now. Love you." Looking over at his mother buzzing around the kitchen fixing herself a green smoothie or something like that, Seymour paused to allow for her a response. After almost 30 seconds of wait, she mumbled a reply that he couldn't hear over the noise of the blender. Oh, well. Such was life. He set off out the door, stopping at the elevator and slinging his backpack over his shoulders to leave a hand free to push the lift button. The same elevator music was playing as did always, running on an infinite loop of just the one song. He figured whoever ran the building had better things to do than change it.

 

School was... fine. Generally it was just kind of same-y to him. He found it hard to pay attention much when every fact a teacher said to the class sent his brain off on a tangent that he got caught up in and forgot to write anything else down. He got to see Audrey in his fourth period science class, though. It was always nice to see her, even if he couldn't get a word in edgewise when he did. There was something about watching her eyes light up and the cogs in her brain start whirring faster than her mouth could make the thoughts into sentences when she got going about something she really, really loved talking about that made him smile real wide and a sort of warm feeling uncurl in his chest from where it was hiding. But only an hour after that was his lunch period, and that meant he had to deal with someone he was a lot less happy to see. Seymour felt someone grab his shirt by the back of his neck with clammy palms.

"Hi, Paine," he said through gritted teeth.

"You know what I want, Krelborn. Sandwich. Now."

Grumbling under his breath, Seymour took a while on purpose to take out his lunchbox and open it. Feeling he was stalling for too long, the taller boy swatted him upside the head and put a hand out expectantly.

"Gimme it, you fuckin' poof. You think you're playing at something?"

Handing Paine the sandwich, Seymour rubbed his stinging cheek as the other boy sauntered off. "Zero-tolerance bullying policy" his ass. The only reason no one gave a shit was how filthy fucking rich the Drillers were and how much say Paine's dad had over the district school board.

 

Well, at least he had one thing to look forward to every day. After last period let out, Seymour left not in the direction of his own apartment, but Audrey's family business. He was almost late for his shift.


	2. Chapter 2

 

The chime above the door jingled as Seymour walked into the shop. It was crowded, but not with people. Every available surface was covered with green, growing plants in every container imaginable, from nondescript clay pots to a plastic orange juice container. It hadn't always been like this. In fact, just a little less than a year ago when Seymour first started working there, the vast majority of the plants had been in some stage of wilting or decay. The reason for the sudden change wasn't immediately apparent upon walking into the shop, but a step into one of the side rooms behind an "employees only" sign quickly revealed it.

Stepping behind the sales counter, Seymour opened the door to the storage room. Poking his head in and looking around, he tried to spot his friend amongst the myriad of plants waiting to go out onto the sales floor.

"Hey, Junior, I'm back from school! How w-"

"Seymour! My main man, my home slice! How ya doin', sprout?!" Having blended in with the rest of the foliage, one of the previously stationary plants in the room bounded in an awkward hop over to the boy, revealing eyes on stalks from behind his podlike head and a big toothy grin.

"Oh, my day was.. fine. How was yours."

"Borin'. Mushbrain got in some new orchids he wants ya to give a look over. Oh yeah, I almost forgot!" The plant paused for effect, his grin widening as he put one vine to his face in an almost humanlike gesture. "Did you know some of y'all humans keep PLANTS in your HOUSES?!" He widened his eyes in alarm. "And sometimes you don't even water 'em. Absolutely barbaric, I tell ya. Whatcha say we go and-"

"Junior," interrupted Seymour, suddenly looking very tired, "I really do love your, er, _enthusiasm_ but I don't... I don't really wanna go anywhere today. Can we just stay in?" He began to trail off, mumbling his last few words, "and my face kind of hurts anyway from..."

Taken off guard, Junior took a bit to gather a response. "Well, uh, sure kid, but why? If you don't mind me _aspen_." The plant seemed proud of his own joke, letting out an abrupt laugh, almost a bark.

"I just.. don't, okay? I don't wanna see people. Except maybe you and Audrey."


	3. Chapter 3

Seymour looked up as he heard footsteps coming into the room. Audrey, wearing her firefighter uniform, had just gotten done doing homework and was coming in to say hi to him, as she usually did in the afternoons when he was at work.

"Hey, Seymour, could you help me with this hose nozzle? I need to flush out the inside of it but I can't seem to twist it off..." The girl trailed off, having been distracted by the plant happily waving at her. "Oh, hi Junior. That reminds me, tell my dad sometime today what you want on the grocery list."

Seymour smiled wanly and raised a hand to greet his friend. "Hey, Audrey. Yeah, sure, I'll help with that. Can I see it?"

Audrey handed him the end of the firehose, gesturing to the twist joint that was stuck. "Here."

The boy tried his hand at twisting the nozzle off, but was fruitless, his hands stinging from the effort. "Sorry, it looks like I can't get it... maybe ask Junior?" He set the hose down on the table he sat at, his posture slumped and his eyes tired.

Audrey handed the hose off to the plant (who sprouted humanlike hands from the ends of his vines to have a crack at it), but her attention stayed on Seymour. She put a hand on the table and looked him in the eye, tapping her fingers worriedly. "What's wrong?"

"What?"

"What's wrong? You're acting really weird, did something happen or something?"

"Ah, no, it's just school, y'know? It's... really taxing..." The boy stumbled over his words as he attempted an explanation. Audrey furrowed her brow, unconvinced.

"What happened. What is it."

Seymour looked off to the side, almost in shame. "... fucking Paine again..."

Audrey's expression fell, and a look of dread clouded her face like a dark curtain over the room. "... oh. Him...." She shifted her weight from foot to foot anxiously, obviously thinking about things she would rather keep forgotten.

Seymour would recognize this reaction a mile away. This was what Audrey did when she was uncomfortable, she started to fidget and pace and she became uncharacteristically quiet. He felt a sort of threatened anger start to cloud his senses. Paine could bully and harass him as much as he wanted, he accepted it now, but never in a million years would he have guessed Audrey was suffering the same from him. Opening his mouth to speak, he fought to keep his roiling feelings from seeping into his voice. "What... what did he do?"

"Oh... he comes up to me and asks me questions about things I like, and then when I answer them he goes and laughs." Audrey dropped her voice to a hushed whisper, looking around before continuing. "He- he asked me if I like-liked anyone once. When I said no he called me, ah... he called me, uh, a- a queer..."

Now that sounded familiar. Paine said shit like that to him all the time. God, he HATED that he had called Audrey things like that. All he wanted for her was for her to be happy, and to be happy with her. One of his favorite things in the world was watching her flap her hands in pure enthusiasm when she talked about things like optimal fire truck ladder length or how to fix the cooling coil in a fridge. He didn't even really know what being a "queer" meant, only that it made you easy to pick on if people thought you were one. It narrowed it down more that it had something to do with crushes, he guessed. He wasn't really quite sure how those worked, made even more confused by the fact that he had thought he had a crush on Audrey until recently. Thinking about sitting near her and listening to her talk made him feel all warm inside, but when he heard people talking about how they wanted to kiss their crushes, his stomach flipped over.

"I'm... really sorry."

Audrey waved him off. "No, no, I'm okay, I promise!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes absolutely junior would swear like a sailor in a realistic context

 

"Alright, who can tell me what the base level of life on any food web is?"

The class was silent.

"All energy originally comes from the sun, and then where does it go to first? Anyone?" Seymour's science teacher tapped the blackboard with a piece of chalk, having drawn a pyramid with four levels and getting ready to write in the bottom one.

"Producers, the first level on the food chain is producers." She etched the word into the triangle's lowest section. "That's life that uses the sun to survive. In terrestrial ecosystems, this role is filled by plants."

A pair of leafy eyestalks peeked over the first-floor windowsill.

"As plants don't consume any other organisms and form the basis of what is consumed, they reside here at the bottom." The teacher placed an X next to the word "producers". "One level up, we have our primary consumers, above that, secondary, and at the top, tertiary." She tapped her chalk to the board as she spoke, writing the terms into the diagram as she moved upwards. "We ourselves as humans can be considered tertiary consumers", she said, putting an X next to the highest level.

Junior began to growl, softly.

As the teacher continued her explanation, Seymour kept his head on his desk, his chin resting on his folded arms as he peered up at the front of the room. Paine, seated one desk behind him, smacked the back of his neck. He flinched, but kept his gaze steady and his voice silenced. The other boy snickered, and kicked over Seymour's book bag, spilling his papers onto the floor. He stiffened, trying to remain perfectly still so as to not show any weakness.

The plant, having turned his attentions from the lecture to his suffering child, narrowed his eyes.

 

When class let out for lunch, Junior pushed open the window and slunk into the room, using his vines to almost ooze into the building like how an octopus would use its tentacles to walk on the ocean floor. The teacher had gone to take a planning period elsewhere, and Seymour was the only one left behind, bent over picking up his scattered papers and facing away from the window.

"Kid."

Seymour jumped almost a foot and spun around in terror. " _Junior?_ What are y- how did- wh-"

The plant opened his mouth to speak, but Seymour closed it with hands above and under his jaw. "No, no, no, you can't be here, this isn't good, if anyone sees you it'll all just get worse-"

Junior raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

Seymour, now breathing heavily with panic, slowly released his grip on Junior's face and took a few steps back, eyeing the plant with pleading eyes and silently willing him to _please_ forget about what he had just seen him go through.

"Junior, I..."

The plant stared at him for a moment, his face unreadable. Silently, he picked up the boy with his vines, holding him as if he were something very fragile that might break at any second. He turned his head to the side and averted his eyes, muttering under his breath.

"... that little piece of _shit_."

Seymour's eyes widened in desperate embarrassment and fear. "No, no, I promise I'm fine, I deal with it all the time, please, I-" He paused to catch his breath, noticing Junior wearing the expression he had when he was about to plan an attack against something he deemed unjust. " _-please,_ Junior, no, it'll only get worse, it'll only get worse whatever I do, just..."

The plant's gaze hardened. "Go to lunch. We'll discuss this later."

 

Seymour opened the door to the flower shop's staffroom gingerly, as if he was worried something might pop out at him. Reaching for the light switch, he jumped when a shoot from a nearby azalea snaked around to flip it first.

"Sprout, I think we got ourselves an intervention on our hands."

Junior emerged from his hiding place among the flora, picking up Seymour with a vine amid the boy's protests and pulling a chair across the room to set him into. "Siddown. We got some talkin' to do."

"Junior, everything's fine. There's nothing I can even do. Nothing needs to be changed."

"Well, _somethin's_ gotta, or else I'll be tearin' my tendrils out worrying about your sorry _bud_ all the fuckin' time."

"What're you even talking about?"

The plant stared him in the eyes, pressing his eyestalks close to his face. "That kid. That damned kid."

Seymour stayed silent.

"What the hell'd you do to deserve gettin' slapped around. _Nuthin'_. Fuck, if I didn't swear only to eat y'all's grownups that little _bastard_ would be _gone_. Wiped out. Off the face of the _Earth_."

The boy began to quake a bit.

"And that little _snivveling_ , entitled _rich_ kid _cock_ sucking sack of _shit_ stains thinks he can just get away with hurtin' you? _My Seymour?_ " Junior was pacing around the room, muttering obscenities under his breath. "If he _ever-_ "

"JUNIOR, _STOP!_ " Standing up now, Seymour breathed heavily, sweating as he caught his breath.

Silence hung over the room as the two stared at each other. Quietly, the boy spoke.

"I... I don't want him to hurt you too."

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was written on a 12 hour red-eye flight from beijing to new york please be patient with me

The lights off in the back room, Junior slitted his eyes open at the sound of footsteps on the creaky floorboards. Slowly, the footsteps grew closer, approaching the stairs that led to the second, residential floor of the building. The plant darted his vines over to the perceived intruder, dangling them by the ankles and throwing on the lights.

It was Seymour. Desperately clutching his backpack with one strap now ripped.

And with a black eye.

Junior saw red.

 

Frantically scrabbling for purchase, Seymour struggled onto his feet and grabbed Junior by the stem with both arms, pushing him backwards deeper into the shop. "Junior, Junior, _please_ , don't worry about _me_ -"

"I can't do this anymore, Seymour."

"... Do what...?"

The plant looked down at him. "Can't keep actin' like you're okay and ya got it under control when you're _not_ and ya _don't_ and I can't _do_ anythin' about it."

Seymour looked into his eyes, silently.

"And it _hurts_ , dammit, it hurts me so much to see ya scared outta your mind all alone."

The boy paused trying to stop Junior from approaching and tightened his grip, sinking into his vines, his face unreadable.

"... Sprout?"

He stayed silent.

Junior wrapped his vines around him as the boy began to shake.

"...When I was really little I used to go to this daycare down the street. It's closed now... there was this one kid who would always push me around, and one day my- my dad came in and yelled at his dad real bad. And he... he never did it again."

Hot tears began to drip down his cheeks as he buried his face in Junior's leaves.

"But now I've- I-" He paused, sniffling. "Now I don't have anyone to do that for me. E-ever again."

Junior could do nothing but hold him and silently wish that one day he could be that person.

Audrey sprinted back up the stairs.

 

 

Seymour sat down at the cafeteria table, his hands shaking. He'd gotten school lunch that day. Less personal loss. That and his mom had forgotten to pack him one. As usual, as soon as he had situated himself, he felt a hand on the back of his neck. He spun around.

"What the _fuck_ do you want this time, Paine? It's the same shit as everyone else, from the cafeteria, fucking _take_ it if you want it so bad. If it'll get you off my ass all the time I'll pack an extra lunch just for you. Is that what you want? Jesus Christ!"

The taller boy leered down at him. "Tell you what, why don't I just come take it from your fridge myself?"

He stared at him blankly. "... What?"

"If you're gonna mouth off to me, I'll teach you a lesson, you little queer. Your mom orders pizza from my fucking work, I know which apartment is yours."

Seymour's blood ran cold.

 

 

Flipping the sign in the window around to the "Closed" side, Seymour walked over to pack up his things, his hands still shaking. Quaking, he was unsteady enough that he dropped his books on the floor, scrambling to pick them up and organize them again.

Junior looked over at him, worry clouding his face. "What's eatin' ya, sprout?"

Maybe there was a way out of getting jumped tonight. Seymour gulped, preparing himself for the inevitable.

"Junior... would it be alright if I stayed here overnight? No... no reason, just wanna yknow, uh..." He looked around for something in the room to pin his reasoning on. "Uh, I have to stay and watch that one orchid Mushnik said wasn't doing so hot. Yeah."

The plant narrowed his eyes. "What's goin' on."

Seymour began to sweat. He nervously put a hand to the back of his neck, smiling wanly. "It's really nothing, uh, can you just let me go home and get some stuff for the night?"

"Not 'til you tell me what's happenin'."

Assessing the potential fallout, Seymour took a deep breath. "...Paine knows where I live."

Junior's eyes widened. "Oh, you are NOT goin' out and gettin' ANYTHING tonight. _I'll_ handle _that_." The plant started towards the door. "You stay here, don't go outside, I'll tell Mushbrain what the deal is and then I'll pop over to your digs. Been there enough I know what I'm lookin' for."

Seymour sighed and made his way upstairs.

 

 

Mushnik was still sitting at the service counter, his nose in the same newspaper he'd been reading and rereading all day.

"Sup, meathead"

The man didn't even look up. "Hi, lawn clippings."

Junior put a leaf-hand to his face, tapping his fingers against where his chin would be. "Soooo... funny thing happened today."

Still staring at his newspaper, Mushnik grunted in response.

"I'm headin' over to Seymour's place to grab his stuff... 'cuz that asshole bully kid basically threatened to come bash his bulb in in his sleep. 'Cuz he knows where he lives."

Putting down the paper, Mushnik showed an expression that almost looked like concern. "...Really? Wow. I mean... the kid's a weenie, but I wouldn't want him to be weenie _pulp_." He hastily corrected himself. "Y'know, bad for business."

Junior raised his eyebrows. "So you'll take 'im?"

The man mumbled grumpily, pulling his newspaper back around his face.

"Good."

 

"I can't believe we're having our first sleepover! This is so cool!!" Audrey, wearing pajamas with a pattern of fireman hats on them, flapped her hands happily as she pulled out the extra mattress from under her bed.

Seymour laughed a little as he readied the fitted sheet to put on top of it. "So what do you wanna do?"

"We could talk, watch a movie, whatever, just we can't stay up _too_ late 'cuz we gotta... oh." She snuck a glance at Seymour, her eyes worried. "We gotta uh, go to school tomorrow."

He stopped unfolding the linens and looked up at her as well. "...You... know why I'm here, don't you?"

She stayed silent, her hands moving in faster and faster circles as she stared at the floor.

Seymour kept his gaze. "...You need help too."

Sitting down on the mattress, on top of her hands to keep them from flapping, Audrey began to quake a little. Seymour sat down too, putting an arm around her. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder.

He liked this better than the romance he'd thought he wanted. Close to her, close enough to touch, emotions bared, but platonic. Platonic and innocent.

She looked up at him. "Can you promise you won't get mad at me for this?"

"...Yeah. What is it?"

She took a deep breath before opening her mouth to speak. "I... I heard what you said yesterday. Downstairs with Junior. And it made me real sad for you 'cuz..." Audrey faltered, her voice cracking as she struggled to maintain her composure. "I want my mom back too," she whispered in a choked voice, almost a sob.

Seymour stayed quiet, letting her ride it out.

"And- and I tell people that ask that she's dead, 'cuz maybe if they think that, then- then, then they'll think it's normal for me to be this t- _torn up_ but she's not, she's not, she's not, she just _left_ 'cause she didn't wanna be my _mom_ anymore." She began to cry as she spoke, her shoulders heaving with every sob. "And I don't know what I even did to not be good enough for her to stay, but I failed it and now she's gone forever, and, and-" Anger crept into the girl's voice. "-and now she's fucking living it up in Florida with some guy named Jerry who doesn't even know who I am, and I don't want _her_ , I want _my mom_ , the one before she didn't wanna _be_ one anymore...!"

Seymour, crying a little as well now, wiped his dear friend's tears away.

She smiled a bit, more tears still streaming down her cheeks. "Maybe we can share... you can have my dad, and I can have your mom."

The boy smiled sadly, chuckling. "No, no, really, my mom's no good, you don't want her-" A sudden sob caught him off guard, and he collapsed too, the gravity of the situation finally hitting him all at once.

 

And so on the second floor of Mushnik's Skid Row Florist, in a bedroom with a fire hose on the wall and a plastic axe by the bedside table, on a ratty pull-out mattress, two broken kids just held each other as they cried, mourning the parents they'd thought they had.


End file.
